So says Arianna Huffington
There’s no doubt the Tea Partiers are angry. But what’s missing from this narrative is the fact that everybody is angry.
Our anger will either lead us to tap into our baser instincts or into the better angels of our nature. And nothing less than the future of our country rides on the decision.
All true, and she definitely understands that Obama is failing badly at delivering on campaign promises or on righting the economy (except for the elites he so seems to be in thrall to.) But when it comes to solutions, how to channel the anger our way, she’s reduced to talking about a few inspirational things that activists are doing.
The real problem is that the Democratic Party, as well as many liberals and progressives, don’t know what they stand for. Howling that Sarah Palin is the Wicked Witch of the West is counter-productive. It doesn’t draw many to your side and worse, it lets the right set the agenda, which the left is then constantly reacting to.
Instead, the left (in the broad sense of the phrase) needs to clearly delineate what it stands for. It needs a competing story to counter the one coming from the right. Most of all it needs to find its principles, then stand and fight for them.
“The real problem is that the Democratic Party, as well as many liberals and progressives, don’t know what they stand for.”
I am a middle-age, liberal white male who is retired military.
I understand and know what I support. I understand and am aware of what others support.
It’s you that has the comprehension problem, and that’s your problem.
Not anyone else’s.
Well, I’m glad you know. But many don’t. Except in opposition to the right.
I hope you get your message out there, because your party sure isn’t. And the Republican Party is. That’s why the mid-terms elections are looking to be a rout for the Democratic Party. They have little they believe in, they compromise and waffle endlessly. And tell me, do you think the Democratic Party as an institution supports (or even cares) about your interests? because the primary thing Obama has done is to shovel hundreds of billions to the banksters.
Which is what Charles Gasparino’s upcoming book is about,
Bought and Paid For: The Unholy Alliance Between Barack Obama and Wall Street
http://www.amazon.com/Bought-Paid-Unholy-Alliance-Between/dp/1595230718/
Unfortunately, there is little room in this discussion for differences. What I stand for is right, what you stand for is wrong because you might try to make me live like you do. The nationalization of politics prevents any possible dialog.
When (as we call each other) progressive Obama-loving socialists and conservative gun-toting rednecks get in the same room, nothing constructive happens, because neither can hear anything the other is saying– and they’re mostly saying it to themselves anyway.
The Tea Party IS the only option for much of America– unless and until those on the left learn how to cross the bridge. Why, some people ask me, should we be the ones to cross the bridge and not them? Simple: do you want them to join you, or not? If not, the Tea Party remains the only option.
ANGRY ANGRY ANGRY
The Tea Party is being reported on everyday 24/7 about their anger! They are mad as HELL and they want their country back! My question and the question that should be asked by the white control media IS: Who took your country and where did it go! Or what are you mad about? But that is not happening from Anderson Cooper to John King to Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly and the idiot Glenn Beck. No all the public hears is NO NEW TAXES” ( 90% of Americans got a tax cut)! But you will never hear that from the people I mention! Like John King that interview Ben Quayle who made the stupid statement “that President Obama was the worst President in history! John King never asked Mr. Quayle to give ONE example JUST ONE! Any first day interviewer would have asked! President Bush sent American soldier to Iraq to fight and die for NOTHING!4,400 dead for NOTHING! President Obama never was that STUPID! Angry attacks against President Obama and the Democrats are allow by the white control media! Hate and divide is helped by the white control media! They perpetuate hatred by these so-call white angry grass route groups reporting on their so-call angry 24/7! The lack of white leadership is to blame and the people that voted for change are to blame! There should be more people speaking up for America and President Obama! The President that is cleaning up Republican mess the President that got healthcare past for 40 million Americans. A President that stop the financial downfall of the country with the stimulus package started by the Republican President and increase by President Obama!
THE PRESIDENT RECOVERY PLAN!
NOTE: If you believe the Republican Party and the white control media President Obama has done NOTHING in the two years he has been President! LIE LIE LIE!!! There plan is to lie to the public and demonize President Obama effort for recovery! Like the stimulus package that they voted for under Bush/Cheney and President Obama increase! Or immigration a plan was wrote up by Senator John Mc Cain and Senator Teddy Kennedy! Now Mc Cain is against a plan for immigration under President Obama!Republican hold up unemployment benefits for American citizen JUST BECAUSE! President Obama put together a plan for small businesses and Republican that said all along we need a plan for small businesses vote against President Obama’s plan!
1. President Obama change healthcare better then any of the 43 pass Presidents!Got a bill past that seven decade of politician could not do! Healthcare benefits cover adult children under their parent policy until 26 years of age! Before you where cut off at 22years old!
2. President Obama is closing the prison in Cuba prosecuting inmates that former President Bush claim where trying to kill Americans!
3. President Obama is closing down the needless war in Iraq bringing American troops home!A war started for NOTHING causing over 4,400 Americans troops deaths for NOTHING!
4. President Obama is investing billions into sending Americans to college thought taxes cut and funding
5. President Obama has successfully negotiate with Russia reducing arms for a better America and a better world for the future.
6. President Obama has started talk with other country on Global warming for a better America!
7 President Obama sign a stimulus package that kept millions American from losing their job kept police and firefighter employed company in businesses and stabilize the country headed for a recession!
8. President Obama gave $4,000 deduction if you purchase a new energy efficient new car !
9. President Obama gave tax deduction to American citizen that purchase energy efficient applicants.
10. President Obama sign a bill to start off shore drilling that will bring jobs to Americans! And reduce dependents on oversea oil! Because of BP oil spill President Obama secure 20 billion…when the cap was 75 million!
11. President Obama approve 30,0000 more troops in Afghanistan and smartly put a time table on their return home. Even after the idiot Republican called him stupid for setting a deadline! SHOWING TRUE LEADERSHIP! He has a plan Bush &Cheney DID NOT!
12. President Obama pass the best credit card reform bill in America history!
13. President Obama put more regulation on the banking industry then any other President before him!
14.President Obama put together a plan for small businesses and Republican that said all along we need a plan for small businesses vote against President Obama’s plan!
15. Under President Obama fraud in healthcare has been expose and many people prosecute and the Buddy System under past Presidents crush!
REMEMBER PRESIDENT OBAMA CAME INTO OFFICER AFTER 8 YEARS OF THE WORSE PRESIDENT IN AMERICA HISTORY. IN LESS THAN 22 MONTH THIS PRESIDENT HAS DONE MORE THEN ANY OTHER PRESIDENT GIVEN THE CONDITION THIS COUNTRY WAS IN!
Bob, I get what you’re saying. But the Tea Party is not the answer. One look at their leadership and candidates will make it very clear that this is the ubber-right-wing trying to push their agenda. It may not be what every chapter, or every member is about, I get that. But the vast majority from what I’ve seen has been ultra-right, and hell-bent on forcing their norms on society the way they see fit.
Look at some of the candidates they’ve pushed to victory (like Palladino in NY). They make Perot and his VP pick look like pillars of sanity and reason. Not the type of person I want running my state, what with his views on abortion for rape victims being bad, people on welfare taking mandatory hygiene lessons at prisons, and bestiality being just fine… (And no, I’m not kidding… watch his CNN interview, it’s all in there.)
If the left doesn’t provide an alternative path for all that anger and rage, it will go right by default.
Six weeks before midterm elections, House Republicans vowed to cut taxes and federal spending, repeal President Barack Obama’s health care law and ban federal funding of abortion as part of a campaign manifesto designed to propel them to victory in November and a majority in the next Congress. What they don’t say to America is that their policy of the past create the horrible condition President Obama inherit and they criticize! They don’t say why all their proposals in there” Republicans’ ‘Pledge to America’ ” where kept secrete for the last two years! They also don’t tell America why they are the party of “NO” especially on issue that they propose under President Bush! They also don’t tell America why they criticize President Obama stimulus package but past a stimulus package under President G. W Bush! They don’t explain senator John Mc Cain flip flop from agreeing and writing a immigrant bill with the late Senator Ted Kennedy. Then fighting against it! Or the fact that Mc Cain said he would vote to appeal ” don’t asked don’t tell” if the top military wanted it appeal! Then Mc Cain gets on the floor of the senate and fight against it! The Republican also don’t tell America in this stupid ” Republicans’ ‘Pledge to America’ ” how they turn a surplus into a debt! Or why they continue the war in Iraq after finding out there where no WOMD ( Weapon of Mass Destruction)? That cause the needless death of 4,400 plus American troops! Republican never told America why they didn’t purchase proper upper body armor at the beginning of the Iraq War! That the “9/11 Report” stated could have save 750 American troops life’s! They don’t explain why parent of America troops had to find and purchase armor for their children because under Republican rule THEY DID NOT! ” Republicans’ ‘Pledge to America’ ” is a joke as was The Contract With America” JUST PROMISE AND LIES! Why would any American reward any Republicans with there vote knowing they cause needless death of American troops and turn a surplus into a debt! Causing the financial downfall of the country!
Tyrone, I think you just made the best argument for why everyone is (or should be) mad as hell: Obama and Bush are pretty indistinguishable. On the foreign policy front there’s been a marginal improvement: he hasn’t invaded anyone new, though he’s boosted troop levels in Afghanistan and committed our forces in Iraq for the foreseeable future. But still, he hasn’t banned torture, and he gutted the Copenhagen agreement. On the domestic front, he’s pretty much Bush III: Patriot Act, bailouts, tax breaks, REAL-ID, NAIS (and other attacks on small business), warrantless wiretapping, and tax cuts for the rich. And don;t forget the Bush hallmarks: bigger government and massive deficits, at both of which Obama is continuing to break records that Bush set. You suggest that the right ought to be happy because Obama is continuing or expanding Bush policies. But the Tea Party folks I know don’t like Bush one bit.
Bush was a big-spending neo-liberal, and the people who voted for him know it, though they’ll never admit it. Now we’ve got another one. Yes, the right has a right to be angry– and so does the left. The difference is, the right is doing something about it– even though it’s the wrong something.
Bob makes an excellent point: look at 1930s Germany, where an established industrialized country that at the time was a world leader in social welfare inexplicably went bananas and elected a two-bit right-wing fringe party because of anger at the status quo. When so many people are angry at the status quo., they WILL vote for change– any kind of change. At present, there’s only one force that really offers that. And it doesn’t help the left any that Obama promised change and instead delivered more of the same. Got a little credibility problem there.
Let me be the first to make it very clear that America’s first black President did NOTHING for race relation in America! WE ARE NOT LIVING IN A POST RACIAL AMERICA! White racist idiot are questioning President Obama Christianity and whether he was born in America! This is just white racist being white racist and keeping hate and divide alive in America. They don’t believe he is not Christian or American they just like to make other believe their LIES! Any idiot that lives in America and did not know that is STUPID! White racism is not just going to go away it is a part of America because of the coward and gutless stand it takes against people of color! 43 white only President and 46 Vice President was not a accident in America! White people discriminated against any black person for President often saying “We are not ready”! So please America stop with the we are shock! Black people voted for every white President when the white racist government allowed blacks to vote! White people have this history of hate and divide and respecting the Constitution when they feel like it! White people are the majority and voted in the majority against black people on all levels of elected positions! That has been the practice! So for any person living in America to not see what’s going on with the white controlled media and the white Republican Party! White discrimination and hatred of black people is playing parts in their decision! The stupid game that white people and the white control media and the Republican Party are playing with the public is stupid and obvious! They truly believe that white people are stupid and racist and HEAR IT! BELIEVE IT! and REPEAT IT and don’t investigate past the idiot the racist or the liar that informed them! This is why this country can’t get past racism white people continue to teach their children hatred and that black people are their Boogie Man! And the white control media promotes hatred and divide! That why white cops can murder 7 years old black females and nobody cares! But we will start war thousand miles away from America to liberate another country allowing black men and women to died for that cause! So people just look at the white pundits that are reporting on unemployment! Have you notice they all have more then two job some three and making million! Sean Hannity ( Tv and Radio Show and writes lying books) Glenn Beck ( Tv and Radio Show and writes lying books) Bill O’Reilly ( Tv and Radio Show and writes lying books and is a pervert) Elisabeth of the View ( guest appearance and book writer)! The Bush period was very beneficial to all these people and today under President Obama they are still not hurting financially! Just look at the aftermath of Katrina whites profit from that disaster! In New Orleans they torn down the affordable housing! Where people mostly blacks where paying $250 to $400 a month and rebuild at $900 to $1,100 a month! Nearly 100,000 homeless in New Orleans as a result of white greed and the lack of jobs. Many if not all the jobs when to outsider and immigrants to rebuild blacks are dismiss!
The white control media and the Republican Party are lying to the American people. They quote polls that they are the only ones participating in! First they quote so-call black America polls that they say 98% of black people approve of President Obama but then they will state that that is to be expected because they are black and totally dismiss black people as drinking the koolaid! Then they will quote the Latino 67% approve of President Obama! Then there is the poll that they love that they say 56% of all Americans disapprove of President Obama! ALL AMERICANS??????? These polls for which I never in my 52 years in America participated in are downright BS! Most polled are between 250 to 5,000 that they claim reflect nearly 400 million Americans thoughts! TOTALLY CRAZY! I truly believe that level head American understand that Republican are anti-American anti-Employee and for big business that screw their workers! They also understand that it took 8 YEARS to destroy the country by Bush / Cheney! Republicans destroyed a surplus and to this day will not tell the American people HOW &WHY! To vote for Republican is un-patriot and un-American and a disgrace to the many American troops that died in Iraq FOR NOTHING! The Republican don’t have any solution for Americans problem they only have criticism for President Obama who is cleaning up the mess they made! They also have a proven record of stupidity and failure! Sarah Palin is a idiot other country make fun of the idiot and America for allowing her to speak! Palin is a quitter and a Republican Tea Party supporter and a leader of the crazy! She also supports racist! GO FIGURE! Former President Ronald Reagan suffer from Alzheimer the last two and a half years in office as President and Republicans see him as smart and their hero! AGAIN GO FIGURE! Former President G.W Bush clearly the dumbest President ever and Republican still are stating that this idiot should be thanked for President Obama closing out the war in Iraq! Republican love to say the surge WORKED! Yes for a war that should have never been started! Causing 4,300 plus Americans troops death for NOTHING and over 100,000 Iraqis citizen for NOTHING and counting! If white Americans once again give stupid incompetent Republicans the house GOD help America!
WHERE IS THE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP
There are some question I never here from none of the major news outlet in America! LIKE: Where is the white Republican level headed leadership? Where is the white Republican apologize to the men and women that lost their lives in Iraq for NOTHING! In a war that Republican President G.W. Bush and many of the Republican Congress voted FOR! Why doesn’t the Republicans tell how they turn a surplus that they receive from a Democrat President Clinton? Into debt for the country sending the country toward a recession! Why don’t the Republican tell what their stimulus package of 350 billion did for the country……. that they voted for under Bush? Why is that stimulus package not demonize like the 850 billion President Obama past that stop the recession they started? Why are the Republicans fighting for the Bush’s tax cuts that didn’t help the economy under Bush. Also didn’t help American’s businesses! Also will add 750 billion dollars to America’s debt! Something their STUPID ” Pledge to America” claim they do not want to do??? Why don’t the Republican explain their stupid healthcare proposal that only covered 3 million uninsured Americans when 40 million are uninsured! Why do Republican believe in war and criticize President Obama for talking first and maybe not wasting American lives? Why don’t Republican propose a bill to stop police brutality? Why don’t Republicans speak out against hate group the hide behind Tea Party and talk shows! Sean Hannity, Glenn Beak, Bill O’Reilly Ann Coulter, all racist hate batter all supporter of Republicans! Why are the not denounce by all Republicans! Why don’t Republicans tell the publican that Sarah Palin if ever to get near the White House would be disaster for the world!
Talk about white racist ignoracne and bullying just look at the white so-call Christian protesting with sign at a white soldier funeral! The shame is that many whites don’t speak out against the evil! Attacking the dead is shameful! White racism in America is ones of the strongest forms of bullying and has gone on for century! So when people are told to stand up to the bully with the notion he or she will back down . That is not true and only happen in white movie and white TV shows! Blacks have stood up spoke out and march and died and where beat and murdered standing up to white racist bullying! And the white racist bully mentality gets stronger over the years! Under President Obama their have been more threats to an American President’s life! That has taking on record numbers! More white militant group Under President Obama more white anti-America groups! Hate and divide is the Program of the white Republican Party that also encourage bullying and hate and divide! HELLO TEA PARTY”…… We see white reality shows that encourage bullying and fights verbal and physical like MTV ” Real World” Jersey Shore”The Challenge: Cutthoat”. The Housewives of “whatever”…… Then it’s Jerry Springer” a white disgusting show that not only encourage violent but promote the show for it’s violent! Many white show on TV encourage bullying and violent then have the nerve to wonder why American children of all race are violent and become bully! They look at Judge Judy a white woman that is educate and in authority. But treats the litigant that come into the courtroom like second class citizen! She scream yells and calls litigant names like idiot ‘fools’ ignorance’ moron’ and one white male litigant she refer to as “This Thing! This makes her a bully because number one she already has power over the litigants! Given to her by America’s justice system! Second she knows that if the litigant respond like she talked to them she can just dismiss their cases…. THAT IS EVIL!… THAT IS A BULLY!!!!! That same bullying behavior is taught to America’s young that is taught to white police officers that abuse their authority and bully black women and children black senior citizen and especially black males! That racist bullying is in America’s government and has been forever! So we all must wake up and take responsibility for not identifying the racist bullying in America and how it is taught. Whites must take a leadership stand against bullying in America! They are the majority and with that comes responsibility! White are more likely to be in authority and as a matter of history have disrespected authority and theirselves!